"A Christmas Memory"

One day recently while substitute teaching I read a thoughtful piece by Truman Capote. I almost cried, but I was with students and didn't think it was wise.  “A Christmas Memory” is about his friend who calls him Buddy, an elderly cousin and what they did to get ready for Christmas. They made and gave away fruit cake and went to the woods to cut down a tree and decorated it with homemade ornaments. They made each other kites for Christmas. 

The reflection ends:

This is our last Christmas together. Life separates us. Those who Know Best decide that I belong in a military school. And so follows a miserable succession of bugle-blowing prisons, grim reveille-ridden summer camps. I have a new home too. But it doesn’t count. 

Home is where my friend is, and there I never go. And there she remains, puttering around the kitchen. Alone with Queenie.  Then alone.  (“Buddy dear,” she writes in her wild hard-to-read script, “yesterday Jim Macy’s horse kicked Queenie bad. Be thankful she didn’t feel much. I wrapped her in a Fine Linen sheet and rode her in the buggy down to Simpson’s pasture where she can be with all her Bones. . . . “). 

For a few Novembers she continues to bake her fruitcakes single-handed; not as many, but some: and, of course, she always sends me “the best of the batch.” Also, in every letter she encloses a dime wadded in toilet paper: “See a picture show and write me the story.” But gradually in her letters she tends to confuse me with her other friend, the Buddy who died in the 1880’s; more and more, thirteens are not the only days she stays in bed: a morning arrives in November, a leafless birdless coming of winter morning, when she cannot rouse herself to exclaim: “Oh my, it’s fruitcake weather!” And when that happens, I know it. 

A message saying so merely confirms a piece of news some secret vein had already received, severing from me an irreplaceable part of myself, letting it loose like a kite on a broken string. That is why, walking across a school campus on this particular December morning, I keep searching the sky. As if I expected to see, rather like hearts, a lost pair of kites hurrying toward heaven.

Thinking about Christmas 2013 

with my late husband. 

The kites are flying. 

So glad for my faith

in Jesus Christ and that 

my husband is with Him. 

Getting My Creativity Back

Port-a-Potties at Best Buy

Wrote two new pieces. I must admit I had inspiration--Black Friday happenstance and a comment from 18 year old Joshua whom I substituted for in September. Ideas take time to jell, but not this Black Friday ditty below.

I am not a Black Friday shopper, but it turned out I was hanging out with Sally and Jake on Black Friday. My car was getting new tires (actually received Black Friday discount) and we went to Best Buy so they could buy a certain item for their granddaughter.

Found out that Best Buy had people camped out Thanksgiving night (Gray Thursday) and they provided potties for their customers! I had to take a picture! I had to write new lyrics to Rocking Around the Christmas Tree. 

Waiting in line on Gray Thursday 

And is it ever cold! 

All I want is in the display 

Get it before it’s sold. 

Waiting in line on Gray Thursday

Let the big discounts be mine 

Later I’ll have some pumpkin pie 

My day off has been so fine.  

You might get a jealous feeling 

When ’er you hear 

All I got for my money 

To deck my halls to be so pretty. 

Waiting in line on Gray Thursday 

Sleeping in on Black Friday 

If I missed some big discount 

I’ll get it Cyber Monday. (Music) 

Waiting in line on Gray Thursday 

And is it ever cold 

All I want is in the display 

Get it before it’s sold. 

Waiting in line on Gray Thursday 

Let the big discounts be mine 

Later I’ll have some pumpkin pie 

My day off has been so fine.  

You seem to have some special feeling 

You say that I’ve been missing? 

Gratefulness for what makes me jolly 

Ingratitude yes ‘tis my folly.  

Thinking about what I’ve been missing 

With all these new traditions 

Ingratitude for faith and family 

Three new days of acquisitions 

Three new days of getting stuff.

I guess I am commenting on how materialistic we are becoming, so to get the bargain we sacrifice family time to wait in line for stuff.  I will share this ditty at Toastmasters like I did my snow birds piece two years ago. See HERE for Summer Wonderland that goes to the music for Winter Wonderland. That post shows celebrating my husband's 75th birthday--so glad we did that.

The occasion for the new rap topic came from Joshua, an 18 year old who said, Mrs. Johnson, write a rap about children having children. I did and it might not be politically correct as adults point out to me, but all the students I have tried it out on like it.

Think, think, think 

You think you're entitled

       Your passions are unbridled 

           You’re barely out of toys

And you’re into boys

You think you’ll be a bride 

But he took you for a ride 

‘Cause he’s given you a distortion 

Of love that’s really hormones

And you’ll have a child 

While you’re still one yourself 

That daddy’s gonna hide 

But we’ll be by your side 

And don’t get an abortion 

Think about adoption

Yes, the diapers start to stink 

All because you didn’t 

Think, think, think 

You don’t have a job 

You can’t go out and rob 

Laundry will be piled 

Welfare will be filed 

‘Cause you didn’t abstain 

And there’s little to gain 

You didn’t think think think 

Yes, it’s time to refrain 

Don’t have a child

While you’re still one yourself.

I also am enjoying rapping for strangers--for example young people who offer to take my groceries to the car. Saturday I saw the latest Hunger Games movie (students I sub for will see it) and I shared my Boredom Games rap with the young woman selling me my movie ticket. She giggled at this 70 year old rapper and I told her about my YouTube channel for MC AC The Rap Lady that is scheduled to have ten more raps up soon.

PUT A SMILE ON 
SOMEONE'S FACE 

WITH HUMOR! 

Getting My Momentum Back

Tuesday I had a lovely breakfast with Kristi who understands grieving from her own path of suffering. She is giving back however. She and her husband have taken in the husband's disabled sister and twenty-something Kristi is making the best of the situation, gradually getting her momentum back. Kristi shared Scripture with me that has helped her and suggested after discipline (doing things she didn't have the momentum to do) the feelings of wanting to take care of her home and sister-in-law came back. Here we were two women almost fifty years in age difference relishing how the LORD is helping us.

Even though it is hard, it is time I get my momentum back after being a caregiver and becoming a widow. Thankful I am able-bodied. START and the spunk will come back.

Here are my 15 momentum starter strategies and things I am thankful for: 

1. Rejoining Weight Watchers. Food still can be fun. I am in no way perfect with my diet, but enjoy the 7 am Weight Watcher group I am in. 
2. Studying my sleep patterns with the Weight Watchers Active Link.Planning 30 minute naps. See HERE. 
3. Having a week off to get things done (November 24-28) and to be there for Sally whose car is in the shop. 
4. Getting on the treadmill. Walked on the cruise and three miles at the Alzheimer's Association WALK TO END ALZHEIMER'S.
   
5. Having yard sales and very conscious of what still needs to leave the house to be able to downside for a move maybe sometime in the next ten years. Meanwhile trying to take care of business at the house including home repairs. 
6. Writing raps again. After a year of not writing raps, finally wrote one and am testing it out when I substitute teach. The topic, "children having children", was a suggestion from an 18-year-old high school boy. He wanted someone to speak up on this topic.  The students so far like it. Meanwhile very shortly ten of my recorded raps will be on YouTube to add to the other three videos. 
7. Taking the anti-depressant Paxil every three days now instead of daily as at the start. In December I will not take this anti-depressant. 
8. Giving back. I daily email other caregivers. I am tutoring Esteban. 
9. Taking time for others. Went to a movie with another widow recently. 
10. Making a list of what I am thankful for and telling people. Went out and thanked my mail lady Connie. 
11. Planning ahead for Christmas. 
12. Keeping a ridged budget and attempting to refinance the house so I can pay off credit cards.  
13. Arranging my workspace for the dissertation on caregiving. Started working on it again after months of doing nothing on it. 
14. Being able to clean the floors. (My husband used to do this for the first years of our marriage and it has been hard for me emotionally to do it.)
15. Making progress with managing grief and being thankful. 

Getting Hacked on Facebook

Friday night it became apparent that someone was impersonating me on Facebook.

Almost thirty of my friends fell for the scam. One engaged the impostor.

Engager: How is you husband?
Impostor: Fine.

HMM. My husband passed away from dementia at the end of June. My friend knew there was a problem! 

Dana received these messages from the impostor me on Facebook and, the English teacher that I am, I edited this uneducated scammer:

I’m so happy now because many good things are happening to me and am thanking God for that. It’s an empowerment program to help people especially the senior citizen, adult, youth. I have received mine from them already. The FedEx delivery service came to my doorstep and delivered cash of $300,000 to me in person.
  

About the 2014 empowerment program in conjunction with Facebook Yearly Bonus—the program is basically to help people to maintain a good standard of living in the entire community and there are prizes to me won. 

All right. I wonder if you have heard about the good news yet.

Dana: Did you open a new Facebook account?

Impostor: No, I did some re-setting so I have to re-add some of my friends. I hope everything is going well with you.

Dana told me As soon as the money was mentioned my suspcions were confirmed and she she unfriended immediately before he/she could steal her identiy. 

Then Dana messaged the real me on Facebook.

Dana: Carol, are you talking to me on a different Facebook page? I think you’ve been hacked. I unfriended your new account until I know it’s you.

The real me: I did not make a new Facebook account.

Dana: Sorry that happened to you! I could smell baloney! I knew it was out of character for you. 

The real me: This could become a blog post.

Dana: Haha! Yes it could. Have you recently accepted any new friend requests?

The real me: No, but I as at an unsecured WiFi Panera Bread [south of Plant City in perhaps the unincorporated Beaslville area] with my small notebook computer open and my iPhone on. Someone was sitting not far from me staring at me. I asked him if he knew me and he said no. The help section of Facebook is confusing to make a report.

Dana: That was him!! I’m sure! Sorry it’s confusing. Keep trying. Tell that story.

The real me: I will. The next Plant City Lady post. Did you LIKE that plantcityladyandfriendsblogspot so it will come to your computer?

Dana: I’m not sure. I may only read it when you share your blogs on your FB page.

The real me: I probably should share on FB. I don’t share all my blog posts on FB.

Then Dana gave me permission to use her name. Thanks, Dana.

Now I noticed an unincorporated place on the imposter's FB--Bealsville. Good information for the Plant City Police. That place is now gone on the impostor's page. 

I talked with a friend's computer-savvy husband last night and he explained to me the dangers of WiFi. Technology is being used to take advantage of us!  

This morning I talked with my neighbor whose FB page was hacked several years ago. You just change your password, she explained and one of her friends called Apple and took care of it while she was on vacation. I learned from her to not take my devices open to a WiFi establishment.

I finally had time to do change my password last night. It wasn't so easy on Facebook HELP, and I didn't call Apple.  I used this site to do it.

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/4-immediately-facebook-account-hacked/

As of this morning, 13 of my friends are on the impostor's friend list. He has no other friends as others have unfriended him. 

Here is how you unfriend someone as I wrote on Facebook:


To delete this hacker impostor of me, go to your Timeline Wall by your picture at the top right next to the word Home. Click on your name. Then click on Friends. A list will come up. Scroll down until you see the false me. Check to see if it just has two pictures. I have a lot of photos on the real one. Then for this false one with pictures that just were added click on the tab that has the check Friends rectangular button. At the bottom of it find Unfriend.


Someone taking advantage of a senior! I had that as I reported HERE. That post has had over 400 views (more than the 300 or so views when my husband died).  I did get my money back. I have dealt with an Internet bully also, and that bully turned around.

Hey, seniors! 

Hey anyone!

I can't punch my impostor in the face, but I can report him/her to the police in Plant City! I can encourage that they reform before they are arrested. 

Getting Away on a Cruise

Items from gift shop

Last week I had the privilege of being a guest on a Caribbean cruise paid for by the same sister-in-law who took me on a cruise in 2012 HERE.  Her next door neighbors (a couple) whom I have known over the years went as well.

Sunday November 2 the three of them arrived at my house. Then  the four of us went by car to Fort Lauderdale, Florida. We stayed over night in a hotel which let the couple's van stay in the hotel parking lot for the week while the hotel bus drove us and our luggage to the dock on Monday where we waited in line to get on the ship.

The weather seemed foreboding as we left.

Ruby Princess

Bahamas

The prediction said  80 to 90 % rain chance. However, no rain. and the weather was beautiful that week, including our trips ashore in the Bahamas and Jamaica.

Now when you take a 70 year old widow on a cruise (me) she gets tired and needs afternoon naps, but she gets new delightful memories. Here are some highlights in the week.

• Being with people you like was delightful. Ann and Kim are so much alike. They both wear head bands, drink a orange spiced tea, and even had the same bags on the trip. I joined their club when I had orange spiced hot tea for dinner the last two night. Kim's hubby had a great sense of humor and went around taking pictures. 
  
• I also met two couples and two women at the ship's morning Bible Study. I introduced myself to two Amish couples--Florida snow birds and I invited them to Plant City's Strawberry Festival--I will go pick them up as they do not drive. They liked my Southern Wonderland snowbird song (see HERE) and I wrote it out for them so they can share it with the Amish and Mennonite community in Sarasota, Florida. (I didn't rap for them--might have been TOO much of a cultural shock.)
• The food was outstanding and hard to resist. At one multi-course dinner I counted four different knives including a special one for salmon and between each course the silverware was changed. So much pampering!  Not sure how much weight I gained back, however. Some of it may disappear by my next Weight Watcher meeting November 15th,  and my jeans still fit.
• The walking helped me get back into exercise as well as burn calories. I have an Alzheimer's Association Memory Walk-a-Thon next Saturday after that Weight Watcher meeting. Will be on the treadmill at home so I can maintain new fitness levels. 
• My spirits seemed to sore after a few days on the trip. I did talk about my grief with my travel companions at first. All three of them have experienced significant losses of parents. Two grief bursts came and went for me. One was seeing a dog ashore, but I pick up Ziggy from the kennel tomorrow. Another strange grief burst was hearing and seeing "Tonight" from West Side Story performed. Suddenly I missed my husband terribly. You just never know about grief. 
• Speaking of spirits, I had a rare strong drink because I did not have to drive. It was just an experiment so I could empathize with students in the DUI class I teach. It was called Beverly Hills Iced Tea and I had the bartender write out how much liquor was actually in that drink: vodka, gin, rum, tequila, etc. I drank it slowly over two hours and then took a nap.  

• I rapped in a Karaoke event and gained some fans who will follow me on YouTube. 

  

  Karaoke Rapping

• I thoroughly enjoyed live entertainment and even a movie, Jersey Boys. 

Entertainer Steve Moris at left almost looks like a relative. 

Wish I could have taken you in my suitcase. 

Back to unpacking.

Hymns and the Ritual of Blogging

Since my husband died four months ago, there has been less traffic on this blog and am not sure who actually wants to read it. Or maybe I have less issues to write about. I have six ideas in draft form. I do put bits and pieces on the Facebook Like page for this blog regularly--actually several each week--I wrote about a random act of kindness there recently. But what about this blog? What do you readers want on this blog? 

One issue that came to my attention was how hymns can reach the care receiver.  See the link HERE. 

Richard Gunderman writes about an old gentleman who came to life with the "ritual" of worship. That care receiver suddenly broke forth in song. 

God will take care of you,
Through every day, o’er all the way;
He will take care of you,
God will take care of you. 

Ritual–in this case, as in others, a familiar hymn–had transformed an otherwise hopeless recipient of care into someone quite different. At least for those few minutes, he had become a human being capable of reaching out and caring for others, a beacon of light and joy to everyone.

I did not think of my husband enjoying hymns near the end of his life as a ritual, however, Mr. Gunderman, but as worship. I do miss our worshipping together with listening to hymns in the master bedroom. Great Is Thy Faithfulness was a favorite one. I had moved the boom box into the bedroom and I used it to play hymns on CDs. That boom box is now back in the den and it would be a grief issue to use it now as I sit in the den writing this post.  

Blogging has been a main ritual for me. I do have two other blogs--one theological and one on my teaching of DUI classes, but Plant City Lady and Friends has always been my main blog, my ritual. I guess in the throws of grieving I am attempting to find my voice again. Hope to get that ritual of blogging back. 

Meanwhile, I am enjoying my daily Scripture that has sustained me over the years. I email five social media friends Scripture each day and several of them email back their Scripture. I returned to Weight Watchers and see slow progress there. I email four caregivers encouragement each day. I am tutoring Esteban and substitute teaching and as usual am teaching an occasional class for DUI offenders. Life goes on. A cruise is planned for me as a guest of a family member. The grave headstone has been placed and artificial flowers are now on the grave. 

God is taking care of me, but it is 
not His ritual--His care is my hope. 

Grieving

Am I sad, depressed or grieving? Yes to all three at different times.

How are you? people want to know. It's hard to know how to answer. However . . . . . .  

My days of being depressed are less and less and I am weaning off of an anti-depressant (Paxil) now. I started taking it in May when my husband was going downhill. I take this pill every other day now instead of every day. In November I will take Paxil every third day.

No wonder I am not as productive as I usually have been. When I lose something or something needs fixing, it is A HUGE DEAL to me now. 

Less than a month after my husband died,  Tim Fall, a judge in California, who blogs more than I do, and who has commented on this blog, asked me to write about my two times being a widow on his blog. It is HERE. Of course the loss of both husbands is different--one suddenly and one from dementia. 

I am going to a Grief Share group at Sally and Jake's church. It is great to be there with others who have lost family members or friends. I can see those of us who are sticking with this series are all getting better. 

A discovery I made last week in Grief Share was that I am comfortable being a caregiver and have been reaching out to other caregivers now. However, being a widow is less comfortable. You have to eat out by yourself at times. You remember when you went places with your late husband. At home you remember his pastimes and think about how the home is different now, and what is comfortable as you forge a new life and changes you aren't ready for yet. 

Tonight in Grief Share we dealt with what people say to us when we are grieving and how to forgive them with God's strength. 

Grief us indeed complicated. 

First Yard Sale

On Labor Day my guests decided they would help a widow [me] with yard sales--their idea. I dared not take them up on this generous offer. Three Saturdays in October seemed the perfect plan. 

My neighbor Cindy down the road loaned me tables Thursday,  and even after her errands came by and helped me set them up in our second backyard where there is some concrete.  

Cindy's tables loaded in my GMC

Friday night, after much afternoon rain, I called Sally and she commandeered her husband Jake to help me put out tools from my husband's workshop on those tables for today's yard sale. Jake always likes to feel useful. Soon my teenager neighbor Esteban came over to help.

You can't see much of the tools, but you can barely see two port-a-potties and a shower chair.  Jake, Esteban and myself then put tarps over the covered tables as it got dark Friday night. It did rain some during the night, but I was ready as I could be. 

I set my alarm for 5 am for Saturday morning. By 6:30 am when their doors opened I was at Weight Watchers. I lost another 6/10 of a pound. I did not stay for the Weight Watcher meeting, but started out for home, fearing that someone would be there in the dark to buy. Just before I got home, in the dark, I put out two yellow signs to direct people to my house. Returning home at 7 am no one was at the house and it was still dark. 

At 8 am I had my first customer. At 9 am Marilyn and her husband George were here. Marilyn even brought lunch to prepare for all of us later. Soon Marianne and Greg were here. Marilyn and Marianne were part of my summer writer's group, and Marianne was the gal I interviewed HERE about her Early Onset Alzheimer's. She is doing great and knows so much about dementia that she was even helping Jake who has a later stage of Alzheimer's after Sally dropped him off. Jake was great at keeping dog Ziggy from running off. 

The day turned out to be pleasant--no rain. Soon this skilled group moved the yard sale down the driveway and closer to the street. People have to be able to see the stuff you are selling if they are going to stop, I was advised. "Many hands make light work" and soon the tables were closer to the street. 

We interacted with all my country neighbors. One, Lee, is a caregiver and he bought those two port-a-potty chairs, the shower chair and the elevated toilet seat from Lowes' that I had written about HERE. I sold all four items for a dollar a piece to this caregiver whose wife has Parkinson's disease. It warmed my heart that I could do this and I prayed with him about his caregiving journey and told him about this blog. Just love your wife, I advised him, even when she is difficult--it's her disease that makes her that way. 

It was curious to me that my late husband had so many cabinets with drawers for his carpentry supplies--maybe a dozen! It was equally amusing to me that men would buy this stuff! Everything went cheaply, and even so I made $409 after Cindy and her crew came back about 5:30. She was pleased that we would be storing her tables in my garage now, ready for the sales the next two Saturdays, instead of in the second back yard as had been the plan. 

Safe and ready for next yard sale

Dog Ziggy and I are tired and ready for bed now.